Operator - 01 Read online

  My mother stops a couple feet from me and regards me with those green-gray eyes. I am frozen. I can feel a collective inhale of breath from my sisters. After a second she simply nods at me and says, “Michael…you can peel potatoes in the sink.” I numbly shuffle into the kitchen and taking up the peeler, use it to attack a stack of russet potatoes. Hi Michael, do some chores, I grumble to myself. I realize that I shouldn’t have expected either a tearful greeting or an angry scolding. The woman who didn’t shed a single tear through my father’s depression and alcoholism, their constant fights, his layoff from the mill and his suicide, the woman who didn’t cry at her husband’s funeral or on the day when her eighteen-year-old son cursed her and left the house with a single bag slung over his shoulder – that woman is not going to get flustered by that boy’s return. With the water running and the peeler moving smoothly, tears leak from my eyes. I can’t remember the last time I cried, and I’ve seen some truly awful things since I left Conestoga. Only Ginny seems to notice. She puts a hand on my shoulder before grabbing another peeler to help me.

  As I cut into a drumstick and pile peas and stuffing onto my fork, I realize that something inside me feels different. A familiar knot in my stomach is gone. I have no illusions: my mother will not become warm and affectionate and I doubt that my sister Amelia will ever stop reminding me of my drill Sergeant from basic training. But I’ve been accepted back into my family. In my life, I’ve been adopted twice: once by the Army and once by my classmates at Georgetown. But this is not the same. Blood matters.

  “So how do you like civilian life? Is it weird to go a whole day without shooting someone?” Jamie teases.

  “It’s sad, very hard to pass the time,” I reply with a straight face. Jamie looks shocked for a second before she laughs. Amelia rolls her eyes and asks for the mashed potatoes. She may be the only one who was angrier than Mom when I left home.

  “How do you like your new job?” Jamie asks.

  “It’s great. Fascinating, but I’m only six months in.” That’s not entirely true. I’m not a hundred percent sure that I fit the sedentary life that I’ve worked so hard for. A suit doesn’t feel comfortable on me. But it’s the path I’ve chosen and if I learned anything in the Army, it’s how to track a path to the end.

  “And what is it that you do, exactly?” my mother asks in a tone that suggests she may not want too many details.

  “I’m an intelligence analyst for the State Department.”

  “Oh, my God! You’re a spy!” Ginny says, savoring the last word.

  I shake my head emphatically. “More like a reporter. It’s a desk job. I look at things like satellite photos and intel reports, as well as publicly available stuff from the Internet, to put together stories. I have a little area of responsibility that I follow and I write articles for some classified journals that circulate in the intelligence community.”

  “What’s your specialty area?” Jeff asks. I hesitate because I know he’s obsessed with guns. I’m weighing an offer to join him tomorrow morning for a hunting trip before I head back to Washington.

  “Generally speaking I work on arms transfers – when a country sells arms to another country through a defense contractor. I can’t be more specific than that or I’ll fail my next polygraph and lose my job.”

  “They make you take a lie detector test?” This from Ginny, who looks like she’s smelled bad fish.

  “It usually catches people who are nervous about the test…” I drift for a second, remembering the exact moment when I learned to flat-line a polygraph while telling the most outrageous lies.

  Amelia turns away from me to mother and pointedly changes the topic. “So I snuck a peek at the blanket you’re quilting for the baby. I love the pink trim!” And there it is. About six weeks ago she called and asked me to come home for the weekend. I said no. She said it was important. I apologized but held my ground. I found out later that she and Jeff announced that weekend that they are expecting a baby girl. Amelia never called to tell me. I realize that I have a lot of ground to make up with her and I think about that and being an uncle while the baby talk continues for the rest of the meal.

  Later, as we’re sipping cider and hot chocolate in the living room, the conversation turns to Mel.

  “I know she was depressed and all when she came back from Russia, but I really can’t believe she killed herself. She was always so cheerful and her kids just loved her. My friend Judy teaches in the same school and told me Mel was one of the best teachers there,” Jamie says.

  “It shocked me too, but I haven’t seen her since I left,” I reply. When Ginny called me in tears two days ago, I felt the blood drain from my head all at once. It was enough to get me to walk into my boss’s office late on Thursday afternoon and ask for the next day off. Then it took me half the day on Friday to settle down enough to start driving, which is why I’d missed my family at the funeral home.

  “Yeah, but didn’t she detest guns? I can’t believe she shot herself. That’s so creepy,” Ginny says, shivering. Mel had been the supportive older sister to Ginny that Amelia never was. I knew without asking that they’d stayed close after I left.

  “No, you’re right, she did hate guns,” I said. I remember trying to get Mel excited about a deer hunt I was going on early in junior year. Hunting was a necessity in my family, an expedient way to cut the food bill in the colder months when demand for cement waned and my father found himself seasonally unemployed. Some of my few fond memories of the man were in the woods, where he taught me how to track, to move silently and to shoot quickly and accurately. Possibly the most valuable lesson was learning to stand perfectly still – no easy task for a teenager, but one that proved invaluable years later. I always thought of hunting as a basic skill, like carpentry or tuning a car, so Mel’s visceral reaction to guns surprised me. “They’re awful, evil things,” she said, “and nothing good comes from them.” I got angry and told her that just because her family could afford to eat without hunting didn’t make them better than everyone else. That softened her and she apologized, but she never really changed her opinion.

  “Yeah, a lot of people have been talking about it, saying that it seems wrong,” Jamie adds. “It’s totally not like her. I mean if I were going to go, it would be a handful of Vicodin,” she continues and looks around puzzled when she realizes everyone is staring at her. “What? I’m just saying…”

  * * *

  My cellphone wakes me from a sound sleep. I’m sweating, which means that it caught me in the middle of a nightmare, but the details evaporate from my brain before I can catch them. I’m instantly awake like the lamp on the nightstand I flick on as I sit up. It’s Veronica on the other end of the line.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, did I wake you?”

  “No, I was reading,” I lie instinctively and glance at my watch – it’s just after midnight. I’m unaccountably relieved that years in the field have taken the sleep out of my voice.

  “This is going to sound stupid, but I think George is stalking me. I’m with a friend who was also at the funeral. We met for dinner in New Paltz and as we were leaving the restaurant I could have sworn I saw George across the street. Now we’re sitting in this bar down the block. We were heading home, but I looked out the window and he’s there in a car right outside. I know I sound totally paranoid, but I’m a little freaked out. I’m so sorry to bother you, but you’re the only – well, guy I know around here.” I can barely hear her over the background noise. “And if I ask some stranger in the bar to help me I might just be trading one problem for another.”

  “Just stay put and tell me where you are,” I reply, reaching for my pants.

  A half hour later, I pull my black 2004 Pontiac GTO into a parking spot a block short of the bar. I look in the rearview mirror as I pull a sage baseball cap with “Blackhawk” written on the front in modest letters low over my eyes. I step out of the GTO and amble forward, slouching deliberately with my hands thrust into jeans pockets and my
eyes cast down. It’s almost as good as invisibility for a man with a medium build.

  I spot George immediately. New Paltz is not Conestoga – it attracts a good crop of wealthy city folk in the summertime and during ski season, but fewer at this time of year. Sitting behind the wheel of his new, cherry-red BMW coupe, George stands out like a strawberry on a pumpkin pie. I brush past the car on the sidewalk and confirm that he’s not holding anything but the steering wheel. I walk two cars further down the block, then cross the street and turn back to Rascal’s Lounge. A bouncer blocks the door – a wide Samoan who looks like an offensive tackle for an NFL team. The man eyes me and glances at my D.C. driver’s license with a professional eye before waving me through.

  Rascal’s is a big place, considerably larger inside than it appears from the street. It has a Boston-pub-meets-Swiss-chalet feel to it. A long oak bar attended by three attractive women in buttoned vests exposing a healthy amount of cleavage runs the length of the main room. The twenty-something crowd is mostly standing in the space next to the bar, but a line of booths hunker against the wall under hunting trophies and old ski paraphernalia. The sour smell of beer competes with Old Spice and a pulsing song from the Cure for my attention. I take off my cap and run my fingers through my hair, which is approximately the color of squid ink and is starting to feel a little shaggy. This earns me a stare from a brunette in a halter-top with large breasts and thick makeup. I look away quickly, scanning the room. Veronica is sitting in a booth talking to another thin, pretty woman with thick dark eyebrows and curly brown hair. Veronica is wearing a black sweater that fits her snugly and a silver necklace with a small pendant in the center. She waves when she spots me and I thread my way through the crowd and slip into the booth next to her friend, who she introduces as Nicole.

  “I think you’ve actually rescued us twice tonight,” Veronica laughs, pointing to a short man with a bad hairpiece wandering back towards the bar with a tumbler of scotch. “That guy would not give up! Why is it that only short bald guys over fifty have any confidence?” she asks and Nicole laughs. Veronica’s eyes crinkle a little at the corners as she smiles.

  “I don’t know,” Nicole replies, “those guys who sent us drinks from the bar seemed pretty pleased with themselves.”

  Veronica frowns and pauses for effect before saying, “If it had been anything but chocolate martinis…” and the two of them burst into laughter that does not end until they are dabbing the tears out of their eyes.

  “Sounds like a big night.”

  Nicole shakes her head. “You have no idea. Most of the time, hitting a bar is like being locked up in seventh-grade gym class. These places are full of guys who are big talkers around their friends and absolute cowards without them. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have the charm of a torque wrench when you get them alone. And if you actually find one of them to date, you’re lucky because the only other choices are married guys, the eternally uncommitted thirty-somethings and the real creeps like Jock Awesome outside. Did you get a look at him, by the way?” Nicole asks.

  “Jock Awesome?”

  “That’s what we called George in Russia. You know, the kind of guy that always checks himself out in the mirror? Always has to be right, always in control? He was a freakin’ nightmare.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

  “He’s sitting in a BMW right across the street.”

  Veronica nods. “I think he’s been out there for a couple of hours because I noticed the car when we walked in. Then we were getting ready to go and I took a look out the window and saw him lurking...”

  “It would make me nervous, too.”

  “What do we do?” Nicole asks. “I was thinking about having the bouncer walk us out, but Awesome could still follow Veronica.”

  “Does he know where you’re staying?” I ask Veronica.

  “I don’t think so. It didn’t come up last night. I don’t see how he would know. There are a lot of B&Bs around here.” Veronica bites her lip and twists the slender silver chain on her necklace as she thinks.

  “How do you think he found you then?”

  “That could be my fault,” Nicole says. “I’m from Kingston, and Awesome knows where I live. He saw me at the funeral today.”

  “Let’s just walk out of here,” I suggest. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t follow you home.”

  “Are you sure? George was an Olympic rower, and then he started taking karate or something … and I think he won a bunch of tournaments,” Nicole says, looking anxious.

  “Don’t worry,” I say.

  A few moments later, Veronica and Nicole step through the door to the bar with me two paces behind. The door to the BMW coupe immediately swings open and George crosses the street in four rapid strides as the club bouncer moves aside to let the girls out. George has worked himself into a rage. His pupils are dilated and his face is flushed red. He’s been drinking. He starts swearing before he reaches the curb, “Fucking bitches…”

  Just as I’m about to move to intercept him, the Samoan bouncer puts his arm out and steps in front of me. He moves swiftly for a man of his size, interposing his bulk between George and the girls.

  “Don’t bother the ladies, pal,” he says as he plants his feet. He is wider than the door to Rascal’s, and looks strong as a horse. George tries to step around him and the Samoan sidesteps with him. George takes a half a step forward and the big man puts those two enormous paws on George’s chest and shoves, backing George up three feet without breaking a sweat. George’s red face brightens to the same shade of cherry as his BMW and he takes a step back toward the bouncer. The Samoan wags his finger “no” and for an instant it looks like it might end there. Then, without warning, George steps in on his right foot, planting it solidly. His left fist comes swinging towards the bouncer in a classic roundhouse. The Samoan puts up a beefy paw and blocks the telegraphed punch effortlessly. Then the big man steps in and grabs a handful of George’s lapel in an effort to grapple him. George clamps his hand over the bouncer’s big paw, simultaneously leaning in and to his left as he twists the man’s wrist sharply. A cry of pain comes from the Samoan, who lurches to one side. Then George hits him in the solar plexus with his free right fist and the big man collapses forward. Without mercy, George’s left knee sweeps up and connects solidly with the man’s face, sending him sprawling to the pavement. A woman waiting outside the club screams, and someone else yells, “Call 9-1-1!”

  George turns away from the man on the ground to face Veronica and Nicole, his fists still clenched. I step forward and put the back of my arm in front of them, gently moving them behind me. I look George squarely in the eye, meeting his gaze in a manner that I did not last night. “You should stop now,” I say to him in a tone he’s probably never heard before. This freezes him for an instant. He looks at me perplexedly, as if I’m a cockroach that’s gotten between him and his meal. “He pushed you first,” I say. “You should just walk away now.”

  “Get out of my way.” George gives me the same look he’d give that cockroach just before grinding it under his heel.

  I shake my head. George takes the opportunity to try to catch me off-guard, lashing out with his right foot. He kicks low, aiming for my left knee. It’s not a Karate roundhouse but a Muay Thai-style shin kick. George is decently fast, but I’ve already raised my left foot up and catch the middle of his shin with the solid side edge of the lug sole of my shoe. They don’t wear shoes in mixed-martial arts tournaments so George has probably never hit his shin quite so hard on a sharp edge. Trust me, it hurts. He swears loudly and jabs with his right fist but I’ve already stepped back. Then he jabs again with his left, using it as a decoy to set up a roundhouse with his right fist. He’s good and angry and he steps into the punch, putting his weight behind it.

  That’s what I’m waiting for. I’m already spinning to my left as I catch his right wrist on the knife-edge of my right hand as it sweeps up and clamp onto it as I pivot past him. My left hand slides around the b
ack of his elbow and I twist the wrist so that the joint bends back on itself, forcing him to turn with me to keep his wrist from breaking. It’s a move he’s undoubtedly seen before, but not executed as quickly. As he starts to recover, I release the wrist and jab three fingers into a spot below his armpit. His right arm spasms. Then with my other hand I immobilize his left arm. I pause to give him a chance to realize that he can’t move either arm. George gasps as he tries to figure out how some guy he has fifty pounds on has just decommissioned him in three seconds, and it makes him even angrier.

  We’ve reached the precise moment that I’ve been thinking about since Veronica called me an hour ago. I can easily put George on the ground right now, zip one of the plastic ties I’ve got in my jacket pocket around his wrists and wait for the police to show. He’ll spend a night or possibly two in a holding cell and be arraigned and released by Monday. He will have a very good, very expensive lawyer who will keep him out of prison. Given what I know about George from Veronica and what I’ve seen of his temper, though, I don’t think it will end there. It will take weeks or months for this guy to cool down. And that only really leaves me with one choice.